Category Archives: Climate change

News reports about climate change often focus on how the average
global temperature is rising, but perhaps more attention should be
paid to some alarming trends in extreme temperatures — the
conditions that are more likely to kill people and push species
toward extinction.

A new study published last week revealed that temperatures
across the Earth’s surface went up an average of 0.19 degrees C
(.34° F) each decade over the past 30 years, whereas the highest
temperature recorded each year has gone up even more — an average
of 0.25 degrees C (0.45° F) per decade.

The study, led by Simon Papalexiou of the University of
California at Irvine, calls out even greater changes in the extreme
temperatures in specific locations. Average change per decade of
0.33 degrees C (0.59° F) were measured in some parts of Europe,
Asia, Australia and Africa.
Download PowerPoint map (PPT 1.4 mb) from the report in the
journal Earth’s
Future.

Meanwhile, hottest temperatures recorded throughout the world
grew even faster in some of the largest cities, according to the
study. Of the cities for which reliable data are available, the
increased temperature in the “megacities” rose an average of 0.33
degrees C (.59° F) per decade, and numerous cities exceeded 0.6
degrees C (1.08° F).

Over a 50-year time period, Paris had the fastest change, with
the hottest temperature of the year growing by 0.96 degrees C
(1.73° F) per decade. Over the past 30 years, Houston’s hottest
temperatures grew even faster, rising 0.99 degrees C (1.8° F) per
decade.

The urban heat island effect, which is caused by solar heat
absorption in concrete, steel and glass structures, is “likely to
have contributed to the observed alarming changes,” the report
says, adding that a better understanding of the causes could help
reduce the risks for people living in cities.

“More than just temperature readings on a map, these events have
taken a severe human toll,” states a
UCI news release on the paper. “A heat wave in Europe in 2003
caused roughly 70,000 deaths, and another in Russia in 2010 killed
nearly 55,000 people. In the United States, an average of 658
deaths due to excessive heat were reported per year between 1999
and 2009.”

Amir AghaKouchak, a co-author of the study, said government
officials will need to pay more attention in the megacities, where
the risks are greatest.

“In France after that massive heatwave (in 2003), now all
nursing homes or places where there are a lot of vulnerable people
have to have at least a common room with air conditioning,” said
AghaKouchak, quoted in a
Reuters story by reporter Laurie Goering.

“That can be done and it’s already happening in some places,” he
said. “But some countries don’t have the resources to do that.”

Architectural styles and green areas with trees and plants may
help reduce the everyday risks to those who don’t have the
resources to protect themselves.

The greatest problems surrounding climate change won’t be seen
in the averages but in the new extremes — the temperatures, sea
levels and rainy downpours never before experienced at a given
location.

The website WX shift
(pronounced “weather shift”) was designed to tell people about
changing climate trends, including “The
10 hottest years.” For example, of the 10 hottest years on
record, only two occurred before 1998 (1934 and 1990). The five
hottest years on record have all occurred in the past 11 years.

WX shift also contains predictions for the number of days a
given location will reach a high temperature. See “Future
days above 95° F. This interactive graphic is said to be based
on historical records and climate change models, as explained at
the bottom of the page.

Another graphic on
Climate Central’s website helps explain how a small change in
average temperature can lead to an increasing number of
record-breaking temperatures and more extreme conditions.

When it comes to reports of climate change, I cannot escape
“fake news,” which I define as wholly made up with little basis in
fact. More often than not, however, what I observe are news stories
in which the reporters exaggerate or simply misunderstand the
results of scientific studies.

In a confusing landscape of climate news, it is not easy to know
what to believe. That’s why we need news reporters who work hard to
get things right by understanding the science and conveying
information in a meaningful way.

Key to the effort is figuring out which studies are even worthy
of mention. A huge red flag for me is when I read a report from a
so-called scientist who gathers no original data of his or her own,
but instead grabs information from someone else’s peer-reviewed
report and totally changes the conclusions of the original
author.

Credibility of top climate
stories (click to enlarge)Source: Climate Feedback

“Climate Feedback,” a
website in which climate scientists review the accuracy and tone of
news stories, can help us understand the complexities of climate
and identify reporters who tend to get things right. One drawback
of the website is its focus on a national audience, which leaves
out stories by numerous reporters working at mid-sized and smaller
newspapers and magazines.

Still, I was delighted to see a new article on the website that
looked at the
top 25 climate stories that went viral during 2017. Many of
these stories were new to me, and the analysis helped me to get a
feeling for the inflammatory and untrue nature of some stories
floating around the Internet.

Out of the 25 stories most viewed and commented upon, climate
scientists considered only about half of them to be highly
credible, containing no major errors or misleading descriptions.
Because of its widespread readership, seven of the most-read
articles were from the New York Times, which was rated highly for
scientific accuracy.

Of the top five articles getting the most public attention, all
contained some credibility problems. Among them, an article in New
York Magazine titled
“The Uninhabitable Earth,” was found to be overly sensational
by
Climate Feedback reviewers. Author David Wallace-Wells
intentionally looked for the most extreme conditions imaginable
under climate change scenarios, though he accurately described
several scientific studies. After the criticism, Wallace-Wells
followed up with
detailed notes in annotated format to support his approach.

Another top-five article, called
“Ship of Fools — Global Warming Study Cancelled Because of
‘Unprecedented’ Ice,” was criticized by
Climate Feedback reviewers for its sarcastic tone and omission
of basic facts. Author James Delingpole of Breitbart News seemed to
ignore the idea that sea ice could be pushing south out of the
Arctic as a result of — or irrespective of — climate change. Was
the article intended as a joke? Stories like this, which discount
global warming on flimsy circumstances, frequently get passed
around on Facebook, and they drive scientists crazy. University of
Manitoba professor David Barber explained what happened in a note,
and a
UM news release called the Breitbart piece “stunningly
ill-informed.”

The remaining three of the top five stories — from National
Geographic, BBC and The Atlantic — were described as “neutral” with
only a few problematic issues. The main criticism of the National
Geographic story, which described the effects of climate change on
polar bears, was the apparent suggestion that a specific polar bear
(shown in a photograph) was starving because of climate change,
whereas nobody knows what had happened to that particular bear.

While on the topic of scientific information, I’d like to again
share a source to which I am somewhat addicted. Science Daily is really nothing
more than a collection of news releases from universities and other
institutions where research is being conducted.

These news items, usually approved by the researchers
themselves, are written for nonscientists. They are often the first
glimpse that we can get into new findings. As such, one must be
cautious, because new findings do not always pan out. The website
links directly to the original scientific papers and news sources,
and it sorts by topic, such as “Climate
News.” One can also sign up for email notifications.

News was breaking yesterday as I completed this blog on offshore
oil drilling. I doubt that anyone was surprised by the reaction of
outrage that followed Secretary Ryan Zinke’s apparently offhanded
and arbitrary decision to exempt Florida from an otherwise
all-coast leasing plan.

All U.S. senators from New England states, Democrats and
Republicans, signed onto legislation to exempt their states from
the drilling plan, while U.S. Rep. David Cicilline, D-RI, says he
has unanimous bipartisan support for a similar bill in the House.
Now, if they move to include the rest of the East Coast and the
West Coast in the bill, they might have enough votes to pass it.
(See
statement from Rep. David Cicilline.)

Meanwhile, Washington’s Sen. Maria Cantwell, the ranking member
of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, set the stage
yesterday for the inevitable lawsuits that will follow if Zinke
maintains his present course of action. Cantwell said in a
statement that Zinke may have violated the Outer Continental
Shelf Lands Act. Others have said that he may have violated the
Administrative Procedures Act as well (Washington
Examiner).

—–

The Trump administration’s announcement of an open season on
offshore oil drilling all around the edges of the United States has
put some congressional Republicans on the hot seat during a tough
election year.

Opposition to the proposed oil leases along the East Coast is
reflected in the negative comments from Republican governors Larry
Hogan of Maine, Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, Chris Sununu of New
Hampshire, Henry McMaster of South Carolina and Rick Scott of
Florida. None want to see drilling anywhere off their
shorelines.

Just days after Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced his plan
to issue leases for oil and gas exploration and development nearly
everywhere, he decided to let Florida off the hook — to the relief
of Gov. Scott, who is said to be a close friend of the Trump
administration.

Zinke’s exemption for Florida was announced in a tweet
posted on Twitter, in which he called Scott “a straightforward
leader that can be trusted.”

“President Trump has directed me to rebuild our offshore oil and
gas program in a manner that supports our national energy policy
and also takes into consideration the local and state voice,” Zinke
tweeted. “I support the governor’s position that Florida is unique
and its coasts are heavily reliant on tourism as an economic
driver. As a result of discussion with Governor Scott’s (sic) and
his leadership, I am removing Florida from consideration of any new
oil and gas platforms.”

It appears that Zinke is admitting that oil and gas development
can harm the local tourism industry. Needless to say, the other
Republican governors also would like a piece of that “support” from
Zinke, as reported in a story by Dan Merica of
CNN News.

Meanwhile, on the West Coast, Democratic governors and many
members of Congress also oppose the drilling plan — with the
exception of Alaska, where Gov. Bill Walker supports expanded
drilling anywhere he can get it — even into the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge. I discussed the ANWR drilling proposal in
Water Ways on Nov. 16, before approval of the Republican tax
bill.

Democrats in Washington state’s congressional delegation are
unified in their opposition to offshore drilling, and most of them
support legislation that would take the entire matter off the table
for good. They are joined in their opposition by Rep. Dave
Reichert, a Republican from the Eighth District.

“This moves America in the wrong direction and has the potential
to have a negative lasting effect on our oceans as well as the
shorelines of states on these coasts,” Reichert said in a
statement. “Our country is at the forefront of developing
efficient and cost effective alternative energy technologies and we
should continue to support innovation in this area.”

Congressional districts in
Western Washington.Graphic: govtrack

Jaime Herrera Beutler, a Republican who represents the Third
District — including coastal areas in Southwest Washington — was a
little more low-key.

“I don’t support offshore oil and gas exploration in states that
don’t want it, and Washington’s citizens have never indicated any
desire to have oil and gas activity off their coast,” she said in a
Facebook
post. “I’m not aware of any active plan to drill off Washington
or Oregon, but I will act to protect our citizens and our coast if
any such effort does arise.”

Rep. Derek Kilmer, Sixth District: “For decades, Democrats and
Republicans have agreed that opening our waters up to drilling
would be shortsighted and wrong. Doing so could threaten our
fisheries, shellfish growers, tourism, and jobs in other key
sectors of our economy.”

Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell: “This draft proposal is
an ill-advised effort to circumvent public and scientific input,
and we object to sacrificing public trust, community safety, and
economic security for the interests of the oil industry.”

With substantial opposition from all sides, the looming question
is whether Congress will allow the leasing program to move forward
before expiration of the existing five-year
plan for offshore drilling (PDF 34 mb), which ends in 2022 and
focuses mostly on offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.

While the California Coast remains a key target for oil
companies, it is unlikely that we will ever see oil rigs off the
Washington Coast, no matter what happens with the leasing program.
Oil and gas resources simply aren’t known to be there, according to
all published data.

During the 1960s, 10 exploratory wells were drilled with no
significant finds off the coast of Washington and Oregon, according
to a 1977 report by the U.S.
Geological Survey (PDF 10.2 mb). Some 14 other wells were
drilled without result offshore near Vancouver Island in Canada.
Many more onshore wells have been drilled without major success
throughout the region.

In 2008, I explored the idea of offshore drilling in Washington
state when the George W. Bush administration attempted to lift the
offshore-drilling moratorium.

“We would probably be last, or next to last,” state geologist
Ray Lasmanis told me in a story for the
Kitsap Sun. “The geology is too broken up, and it does not have
the kind of sedimentary basins they have off the coast of
California.”

Officials told me at the time that even if oil companies were
given free rein, they would not line up to drill off our coast.

“It is important to note that, at least here on the West Coast,
that it will take more than lifting the congressional moratorium,”
said Tupper Hull, spokesman for the Western States Petroleum
Association. “In addition to state and local constraints, a number
of marine sanctuaries would restrict development.”

Gov. Jay Inslee, who was a U.S. representative at the time, said
offshore drilling was a diversion, because much better alternatives
exist on land. Because of climate change, Inslee was pushing
Congress to encourage renewable energy sources, as he continues to
do today as governor.

“Drilling offshore,” he told me, “is doomed to failure. I’m not
opposed to drilling. We accept massive drilling on federal land.
But the danger is we’ll get wrapped around the minutia of the
drilling issue … and we’re still going to be addicted to oil.”

The latest proposal by the Department of Interior is subject to
public hearings, including one scheduled in Tacoma on Feb. 5. Check
out the full schedule
of 23 hearings.

Witnessing Puget Sound’s “king tides” could return as a more
popular outdoor activity this year, as Washington Sea Grant takes
the lead in promoting the event.

Locations where people have
posted king tide photos on the Witness King Tides
website

“King tides,” which are recognized in coastal areas across the
country, is the name given to the highest tides of the year. These
are times when people can observe what average tides might look
like in the future, as sea levels continue to rise.

The highest tide of 2018 is forecast for this Friday around 8
a.m., although the exact time depends on the location in Puget
Sound.

Activities include taking pictures of shoreline structures
during these high-tide events and then sharing the photos with
others. One can try to imagine what the landscape would look like
in a given location if the water was a foot or more higher. King
tide activities can be fun while adding a dose of reality to the
uncertainty of climate change.

King tides by themselves have nothing to do with climate change,
but these extremes will be seen more often in the future as new
extremes are reached. As things are going now, experts say there is
a 50 percent chance that sea levels in Puget Sound will rise by at
least 7 inches in the next 22 years and keep going from there. They
say there is a 99 percent chance that sea levels will be at least
2.4 inches higher by then. Check out the story I wrote in October
for the Encyclopedia
of Puget Sound.

Washington Department of Ecology, which had been promoting king
tides each year, has backed away from the event in recent years. In
the beginning, I thought the idea of king tides seemed kind of
silly, because high tides are affected by weather conditions on a
given day. But I came to embrace the idea that watching these
high-tide events will help shoreline residents and others
understand the challenges we are facing in the Puget Sound
region.

Addressing sea level rise may not be easy, but some waterfront
property owners are beginning to face the problem, as I described
in another story in the Encyclopedia of
Puget Sound.

During a king tide event in December 2012, the Kitsap Sun and
other newspapers covered the resulting flooding by running
photographs of high water in many places throughout Puget Sound. A
low-pressure weather system that year made extreme high tides even
more extreme. In fact, officials reported that the high tide came
within 0.01 feet of breaking the all-time tidal record set for
Seattle on Jan. 27, 1983. See
Water Ways, Dec. 18, 2012.

Washington Sea Grant, associated with the University of
Washington, has now taken over promotion of king tides, and we
should soon see an improved website, according to Bridget Trosin,
coastal policy specialist for Sea Grant. Bridget told me that she
hopes to promote more local events, such as getting people together
to share information during extreme high tides.

Sea Grant is sponsoring a King Tide Viewing Party this Friday at
Washington Park boat launch in Anacortes, where Bridget will spell
out what high tides may look like in the future. Warming
refreshments will be provided, according to a
news release about the event.

Wherever you live around Puget Sound, you can go down to the
water to document the high tide, perhaps starting a new photo
gallery to show how high tides change at one location during king
tides in the future, as some folks are doing in Port Townsend.

King tides occur when the moon and sun are on the same side of
the Earth at a time when the moon comes closest to the Earth. Their
combined pull of gravity raises the sea level. The presence of a
low-pressure system can raise the tides even higher than
predictions published by the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Friday’s high tide is predicted to be 13.2 feet in Seattle at
7:55 a.m. We won’t have a tide that high again until January of
2019, according to NOAA. Still, Feb. 2 will see a 13.1-foot tide in
Seattle, and tides exceeding 12 feet are predicted for June 16,
Nov. 27, Dec. 1, Dec. 10, and daily high tides from Dec. 26 through
the end of this year.

Understanding the chemistry of Puget Sound may be as important
as understanding the biology. Let me put that another way: Biology
as we know it in Puget Sound wouldn’t exist without the right
chemistry.

Tiny krill, one of many
organisms affected by ocean acidification, demonstrate how water
chemistry can affect the entire Puget Sound food web. For example,
krill are eaten by herring, which are eaten by Chinook salmon,
which are eaten by killer whales.Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Ocean acidification is altering the chemistry of the oceans on a
worldwide scale, but the Pacific Northwest and Puget Sound are
being hit with some of the most severe problems, as experts point
out in a new report by the Washington
State Marine Resources Advisory Council.

For years, I have written about the low-oxygen problems in Hood
Canal and other areas of Puget Sound. Of course, oxygen is
essential to life as we know it. Major fish kills, in which dead
fish float to the surface, have generated a lot of attention. At
the same time, it has been harder to report on the animals dying
from lack of oxygen when their carcasses are at rest in deep water.
And it has been nearly impossible to keep track of the “dead zones”
that come and go as conditions change.

It wasn’t until more research was conducted on the effects of
ocean acidification that researchers realized that low-oxygen
conditions — which were bad enough — had a dangerous companion
called low pH — the increased acidity that we are talking about.
Low pH can affect the growth and even the survival of organisms
that build shells of calcium, including a variety of tiny organisms
that play key roles in the food web.

As the oceans absorb carbon dioxide from the air, we see an
increase in carbonic acid in the water, which has an effect on the
ability of organisms to take up calcium carbonate. For a more
complete explanation, check out “What is aragonite saturation?” on
page
17 of the report.

Increased acidification is a special problem for Washington and
the West Coast of North America, where deep acidified water in the
Pacific Ocean hits the coast and rises to the surface.

“By accident of geography, we have this upwelling that … forces
us into dealing with ocean acidification before almost anywhere
else on the planet,” said Jay Manning, chairman of the Puget Sound
Leadership Council. “I don’t believe I’m exaggerating when I say
that Washington is leading the world in terms of science and
monitoring…”

Jay, who serves on the Marine Resources Advisory Council, was
quoted in a story I wrote for the
Puget Sound Institute, later republished by the
Kitsap Sun. The story describes some of the problems resulting
from ocean acidification in Puget Sound, where an entirely
different mechanism connects ocean acidification closely to
low-oxygen conditions.

Researchers have concluded that an excessive growth of plankton
in Puget Sound can be triggered, in part, by the release of
nutrients from sewage treatment plants, septic systems and the
heavy use of fertilizers. When plankton die and decay, bacteria use
up oxygen while releasing carbon dioxide, thus increasing
acidification.

Although the details still need to be sorted out, it is clear
that some creatures are more sensitive than others to low oxygen,
while low pH also affects animals in different ways. This “double
whammy” of low oxygen and low pH increases the risks to the entire
food web, without even considering the added threats of higher
temperatures and toxic pollution.

Ongoing actions emphasized in the new report fall into six
categories:

“The updated report reinforces our federal, state and tribal
partnership to combat ocean acidification by working together,
modifying and expanding on approaches we have developed through
ongoing research,” said Libby Jewett, director of NOAA’s Ocean
Acidification Program in a news
release (PDF 166 kb).

“For instance,” she continued, “in the new plan, scientists in
the state of Washington will be asked not only to test hands-on
remediation options which involve cultivating kelp as a way to
remove carbon dioxide from local waters but also to explore how to
move this seaweed into land agriculture as a way of recycling
it.”

“Global and local carbon dioxide emissions, as well as local
nutrient sources beyond natural levels, are significantly altering
seawater chemistry. We are the cause for the rapid accumulation of
30 to 50 percent of the enriched CO2 in surface waters in Puget
Sound and 20 percent of enriched CO2 in deep waters off our shores.
Washingtonians understand what is so dramatically at stake. We are
not standing by waiting for someone else to inform or rescue
us.”

A new report from the American Meteorological Society makes a
rather stunning statement about climate change. For the first time,
researchers have concluded that specific weather-related events
could not have happened without the influence of climate change
caused by human activity.

Three events studied in 2016 were so extreme that they did not
fit into the context of natural climate conditions, according to
researchers working on separate projects. One involved the global
heat record for 2016; another was focused on warmth across Asia;
and the third was the “blob” of warm ocean water familiar to folks
who follow weather in the Pacific Northwest.

A “blob” of warm water off the
Northwest coast from 2013 to the end of 2016 could not have
occurred without human-induced climate change, experts say.Map: NOAA’s Earth System Research
Laboratory

“This report marks a fundamental change,” said Jeff Rosenfeld,
editor-in-chief of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological
Society, in a
news release. “For years scientists have known humans are
changing the risk of some extremes. But finding multiple extreme
events that weren’t even possible without human influence makes
clear that we’re experiencing new weather, because we’ve made a new
climate.”

Personally, I did not expect to see this sort of demonstrable
statement about man-made climate change anytime soon. In classes
and seminars on the subject of climate change, I’ve often seen
lecturers present frequency curves that show the number of times
that certain weather-related phenomena — such as temperatures or
rainfall — are observed over a given time.

We’re told by climatologists that many of these curves are
steadily shifting, so that fairly extreme conditions occur more
often and truly extreme conditions emerge for the very first time
in certain locations.

Researchers are loathe to say that a given storm, drought or
hurricane is the result of climate change. They would rather say
climate change affects the likelihood of extreme weather events,
plotted at the end of the frequency curve. In the realm of
statistics, there is a tendency to hold onto the idea that almost
any kind of weather could occur almost anytime, provided that a
perfect storm of conditions line up together.

“First, it is important to note that climate scientists have
been predicting that … the influence of human-caused climate change
would at some point become sufficiently strong and emergent to push
an extreme event beyond the bounds of natural variability alone,”
state the six editors in an introduction to the report.

“It was also anticipated that we would likely first see this
result for heat events where the human-caused influences are most
strongly observed,” they continue. “It is striking how quickly we
are now starting to see such results, though their dependence on
model-based estimates of natural variability … will require ongoing
validation …”

In other words, the conclusion comes from computer models that
can analyze the probability of an extreme event taking place when
greenhouse gases are found at different concentrations. Results
using today’s observed conditions are compared with results using
conditions before the industrial release of greenhouse gases.

In the three highlighted papers, the researchers calculated the
“fraction of attributable risk,” or FAR, for the extreme event they
were studying. FAR is a statistical approach used in epidemiology
to measure the likelihood of an event under various conditions. For
explanations, see
Boston University School of Public Health and the
2007 IPCC report.

“All three papers concluded that the FAR was 1, meaning that the
event was not possible in the ‘control’ planet and only possible in
a world with human-emitted greenhouse gases,” the editors say.

Although this is the first time that researchers have concluded
that extreme events could not have happened without human-induced
climate change, the editors are quick to point out that the same
phenomenon may have occurred unnoticed in the past on a smaller
geographic scale.

These findings do not mean that the climate has reached any kind
of tipping point. It simply adds to the evidence that mounting
weather extremes are not the result of natural processes.

Reporters Brad Plumer and Nadja Popovich of the
New York Times do a nice job of delving into the concept of
attribution science while mentioning five of the extreme events
covered in the new report. They quoted Heidi Cullen, chief
scientist at Climate Central, which produces news stories about
climate issues.

“In 2011, people were still of the mind-set that you couldn’t
attribute any individual event to climate change,” Cullen said.
“But with each subsequent issue (of the BAMS report), people are
able to say that climate change really is increasing the risk” that
extremes will occur.

Spectacular images produced with the latest LIDAR technology
ought to be considered works of art, at least in my humble
opinion.

LIDAR software reveals current
and historical stream channels for the Sauk River, a tributary of
the Skagit.Image: Washington State Geological
Survey

The images on this page, which show geologic features in
Washington state, were produced as part of a large-scale project to
study the state’s geology. Funded by the Legislature in 2015, the
project is largely designed to identify landslide hazards, but the
LIDAR data has many wide-ranging uses for scientists, educators and
political leaders.

Aside from LIDAR’s practical uses, I cannot get over how
beautiful the images are, a feeling enhanced by the knowledge that
the fine details reflect actual structures on the ground. All these
images and 14 others are available as screensavers on the state’s LIDAR website.

At the Great Bend in Hood
Canal, moving glaciers once carved out small hills, known as
drumlins.Image: Washington State Geological
Survey

I asked Dan Coe, a GIS cartographer responsible for many of the
final images, how much of an artist’s touch he uses when producing
such amazing depictions of the landscape. Dan works for the
Washington Geological Survey, a division of the Department of
Natural Resources.

“There is definitely an artistic touch that is added to these
images when they are produced,” he wrote in an email. “While each
one is a bit different, depending on the landform featured, most
follow a general process.”

LIDAR stands for light detection and ranging. When used from an
airplane, LIDAR equipment shoots a laser beam along the ground.
Sophisticated equipment and a computer interpret the reflected
light as precise differences in elevation.

Dan blends the elevation data with other GIS layers provided by
the software, including the outlines of landforms, shaded relief
and water bodies.

“I then bring these layers into graphics software (usually Adobe
Photoshop or Illustrator), where they are merged together,” Dan
said. “This allows me to emphasize the features that are important
to the viewer, usually with colorization and blending
techniques.”

LIDAR reveals details of
Devil’s Slide on Lummi Island in Whatcom County that cannot be seen
otherwise.Image: Washington State Geological
Survey

The primary purpose of the images is to translate the science
for a nontechnical audience, he said. That’s not to say that
scientists don’t appreciate the effort, but the colorful images are
somewhat simplified from the more detailed LIDAR data, he
added.

“If done well, they are a good example of the ‘a picture is
worth a thousand words’ adage,” he said, “and can go a long way to
bridging the gap between science and public understanding.”

When it comes to his choice of colors, he acknowledges that he
strives for a bit of a “wow!” factor, while enhancing the contrast
“to draw the viewers eye and to emphasize the features more
clearly.”

The video at right offers a good description of how LIDAR works.
Early uses involved examining the topography and geology of an area
with the trees stripped away. The surprising images revealed
unknown features on the ground — including a piece of the Seattle
fault at the south end of Bainbridge Island, where an earthquake
raised Restoration Point about 20 feet some 1,100 years ago.

Since then, LIDAR has been refined for greater image resolution,
and the improved software is providing new ways to interpret the
data. For example, relative elevation models, or REMs, help to
better visualize changes in river flows over time. The baseline
elevation (0 feet) is defined as the surface of the river, so old
river channels emerge as slight changes in elevation. Dan explains
the
REM process (PDF 16.5 mb) in a poster on the LIDAR website.

The mysterious Mima Mounds
southwest of Olympia, as shown with LIDARImage: Washington State Geological
Survey

The early use of LIDAR for revealing unseen geology has
gradually given way to much broader applications. At first, the
returning light that reflected off trees and vegetation was
considered useless “noise” to be filtered out by computer. Later,
scientists discovered that valuable information could be found
within that noise — such as the size and type of trees and other
vegetation growing in specific areas. These uses are explained in a
video called “Introduction to
Light Detection and Ranging.” Both videos mentioned in this
blog post were produced by the National Ecological Observatory
Network, or NEON, which is researching conditions and changes
in ecosystems across the country.

A little-known lava flow,
called West Crater, can be seen easily with LIDAR. The site is
between Mount St. Helens and Mount Hood in Gifford Pinchot National
Forest in Skamania County.Image:Washington State Geological
Survey

As Coe and his colleagues find new uses for LIDAR, they are also
looking for new ways to encourage the public to understand the
process and results. A nice two-page summary about the LIDAR
program (PDF 2.6) can be found on the state’s LIDAR website. The
website also includes descriptions of how LIDAR can be used in
geology, forestry, graphics, navigation, meteorology and fire
management, land-use planning, archeology and agriculture.

The page also includes an interactive story map called
“The Bare Earth,” which takes you through various geological
features. Interesting comparisons between LIDAR images and aerial
photos of the same areas are shown in the story map.

The year 2016 may be regarded as a transition year for Puget
Sound, coming between the extreme warm-water conditions of 2014 and
2015 and the more normal conditions observed over the past year,
according to the latest Puget Sound
Marine Waters report.

Click on image to view
reportPhoto: Todd Sandell, WDFW

The report on the 2016 conditions was released this past week by
the Marine Waters Workgroup, which oversees the Puget Sound
Ecosystem Monitoring Program (PSEMP). The report includes data
collected in 2016 and analyzed over the past year.

Some findings from the report:

Water temperatures were well above normal, though not as
extreme as in 2015.

A warm spring in 2016 caused rapid melting of mountain snowpack
and lower streamflows in late spring and summer.

Dissolved oxygen levels were lower than average in South Puget
Sound, Central Puget Sound and Hood Canal, with the most intense
oxygen problems in southern Hood Canal, although no fish kills were
reported.

It was a year for the growth of Vibrio
parahaemolyticus, a bacteria responsible for 46
laboratory-confirmed illnesses, including intestinal upset, among
people who ate oysters in Washington during 2016.

DSP was detected at 250 micrograms per 100 grams in blue mussel
tissues sampled from Budd Inlet near Olympia last year. That is the
highest level of DSP ever detected in Washington state.

Overall, zooplankton populations were high in 2016 compared to
2014, but generally not as high as in 2015.

Conditions, known or unknown, were responsible for various
effects on fish and wildlife in 2016:

It was the worst year on record for the Cherry Point herring
stock, which has been decline for years along with more recent
declines in South and Central Puget Sound. Five local stocks had no
spawn that could be found in 2016. Herring were smaller than
average in size.

The overall abundance and diversity of marine bird species in
2015-16 were similar to 2014-15.

Rhinoceros auklets, however, were reported to have serious
problems, which experts speculated could be related to a low
abundance and size of herring. On Protection Island, breeding
season started out normal, but fledgling success was only 49
percent, compared to 71 percent in 2015. Auklet parents were seen
to feed their chicks fewer and smaller fish than usual.

Including the Washington Coast, more than 1,000 carcasses of
rhinocerous auklets were found by volunteers. The primary cause of
death was identified as severe bacterial infections.

If you are an average person concerned about environmental
conditions in and around Puget Sound, the two-page summary and
four-page highlights section near the beginning of the report will
leave you better informed. To dig deeper, peruse the pages that
follow.

Much has been said about the decline of Puget Sound Chinook
salmon. Often the discussion focuses on how to increase the salmon
population, but I believe a good case can be made for increasing
the size of these once-mighty “kings.”

Chinook salmon // Photo:
NOAA Fisheries

There are plenty of reasons why we should strive for larger
Chinook, not the least of which is the pure joy of seeing — and
perhaps catching — a giant salmon. But I’m also thinking about our
endangered Southern Resident killer whales, which don’t seem to
find Puget Sound very hospitable anymore. As we know, the whales
favor Chinook over any other food.

While it might take more energy for a killer whale to chase down
a large Chinook versus a smaller one, the payoff in nutrition and
energy far outweighs the expenditure, according to Jacques White of
Long Live the Kings, who has been thinking about the size issue for
some time.

In terms of competition, a giant returning Chinook might be
difficult for a harbor seal to handle, and that could give the
orcas a special advantage. Still, we are learning that harbor seals
create problems for the Chinook population by eating millions of
tiny smolts migrating to the ocean before they get a chance to grow
up.

Perhaps the major reason that Chinook have declined in size is
the troll fishing fleet off the coast of Alaska and Northern
Canada, Jacques told me. It is almost simple math. It takes six,
seven or eight years to grow the really large Chinook in the ocean.
Today’s fishing fleet goes out into the middle of the
Chinook-rearing areas up north. The longer the fishing boats stay
there, the more likely it is that they will catch a fish that could
have grown into a really big one.

Years ago, the fishing boats did not travel so far out to sea,
Jacques said. There was no need to travel far when plentiful runs
of salmon came right into the shore and swam up the rivers.

“In the old days,” he said, “you didn’t have people risking
their necks off Alaska trying to catch fish in all kinds of weather
and seas.”

In additional to the trollers, plenty of sport fishermen have
taken the opportunity to catch and take home nice trophy fish,
putting extra pressure on the biggest members of the fish
population. Fishing derbies, past and present, challenged people to
catch the biggest Chinook.

Long Live the Kings, a conservation group, once held fishing
derbies, Jacques noted. But, after giving it some thought, everyone
realized that the effort was counterproductive. “Long Live the
Kings is now out of the derby business,” he said.

Gillnets, once common in Puget Sound, entrap fish by snagging
their gills. Gillnets tend not to catch the truly giant salmon,
because of the mesh size, but they do catch the larger salmon.
Often only the smaller ones make it through to spawn — and that
breeds another generation of small fish.

Fishing is not the only factor that tends to favor the survival
of small fish, but it tends to be a big factor, according to Tom
Quinn, a University of Washington professor of aquatic and fishery
sciences. The issue is complicated, and every salmon run has its
own characteristics, he said.

Hatcheries, dams and habitat alterations all tend to favor fish
that can compete and survive under new conditions, and often those
conditions work better for smaller fish. Changes in the food web
may create a nutritional deficit for some salmon stocks, and
competition at sea with large numbers of hatchery fish may be a
factor. Check out the study in the
journal Plos One by researchers for the Alaska Department of
Fish and Game.

With the removal of two dams on the Elwha River, I’m hoping that
experts can make sure that the conditions will be right for larger
fish — if they can survive to make it home.

Quinn, along with doctoral student Michael Tillotson, recently
published a paper showing how fishing seasons alone can alter the
genetic makeup of a population along with the behavior of
individual fish.

Although these characteristics are not necessarily related to
the size of fish, it directly affects the fitness of the
population. When people are fishing on wild stocks during open
season, a fish has the best chance of survival if it shows up
before the fishing season begins or after the fishing season is
over. But that is not nature’s way.

Through evolution, the greatest number of fish tend to come back
when environmental conditions are optimal for migration, spawning
and smolt survival. If fishing seasons are timed for the peak of
the run, that will reduce the percentage of fish taking advantage
of the best conditions. Over time, the population gets skewed, as
more fish come back during times when conditions are less than
optimal.

The result is likely a lower survival rate for the overall
population. The real crunch could come in the future as a result of
climate change. If temperatures or streamflows become more severe,
the fish may be in a no-win situation: If they show up at the most
optimal time, they are more likely to get caught. if they come
early or late, the environment could kill them or ruin their
chances of successful spawning.

“We are reducing the ability of fish to find good environmental
conditions,” said Michael Tillotson in a
UW news release about the new paper. “We’re perhaps also
reducing the ability of fish to adapt to climate change.”

Certain behaviors are bred into wild fish over many generations,
and some traits are connected to their timing. Whether they feed
aggressively or passively can affect their survival. Some salmon
will wait for rain; others will wait for the right streamflow or
temperature. Some smolts will stay in freshwater for extended
periods; others will move quickly to saltwater. It’s not a great
idea when fishing seasons, rather than environmental conditions,
dictate fish behavior.

The move to mark-selective fishing — which involves removing the
adipose fin of all hatchery fish before they are released — can
help solve some problems for wild fish, Tom told me. Under
selective fishing rules, fishers are allowed to keep the hatchery
fish with a missing fin, but they must release the wild ones that
still have all their fins. Some of the wild fish die from injury,
but most of them survive, he said.

The key to the problem is a better understanding of the genetic
makeup of the individual stocks while increasing the effort to
maintain a high-level of genetic diversity. That’s an insurance
policy that allows the fish to survive changing conditions.

The genes for giant Chinook have not been lost entirely, as I
pointed out in
Water Ways on Nov. 25. If we want to have larger Chinook, we
must protect the individual Chinook that are larger. That could
mean reduced ocean fishing, selective fishing for hatchery
populations, and requirements to release fish larger than a certain
size. Perhaps it would even be possible to selectively breed larger
Chinook in a hatchery for a limited time to increase the size of
the fish.

It won’t be easy, because these notions involve messing with
billions of dollars in the fishing industry, not to mention
complicated international relations. I will save discussions about
the Pacific Salmon Treaty for another day. I will just say that
this treaty is supposed to be between the U.S. and Canada. But
negotiations involve tradeoffs among Washington, Canada and Alaska.
Even the Endangered Species Act can’t always protect wild Puget
Sound Chinook from being caught in Alaska, with the ultimate
outcome that fewer fish make it home to spawn.

Hansville is the driest area in Kitsap County, but in November
the skies opened up with more rain than we’ve seen there in the
past 27 years. In November, enough rain fell in Hansville — 8.7
inches — to break the record for that location.

Hansville // Graphic:
Kitsap PUD

Longtime residents of our region realize that the amount of
precipitation goes up dramatically as one travels south out of
Hansville. For Silverdale, November 2017 was the sixth wettest
November in 26 years, with a total of 11.0 inches. Holly
experienced its fourth wettest November, with 22.9 inches, all
based on rainfall data compiled by Kitsap Public Utility
District.

The one glitch for Hansville is that three years of rainfall
data are missing — specifically 2007, 2008 and 2009 — and 2007 was
a particularly wet year in some parts of the county. In fact,
record November rains were seen in 2007 in Holly but not in
Silverdale. We may never know where 2007 would have fit into the
records for Hansville, but November 2007 was only average in Port
Gamble — the closest station. It’s very likely that Hansville
really did break the record for November this year.

Silverdale // Graphic:
Kitsap PUD

Consistent with those geographic differences, in Holly it rained
27 out of 30 days in November, compared to Silverdale with 22 out
of 30 days and Hansville with 20 out of 30 days. This came after a
fairly average October.

As you can see from the charts on this page, November rains
pushed the lines up to begin tracking the wettest years in the
record books from one end of the county to the other. But, as I
discussed last month, anything can happen during the coming winter
and summer. Last year started out well ahead of the wettest years
on record. But, starting in mid-December, the rains did not keep
pace with the record years, and then came a very dry summer. See
Water Ways, Oct. 27.

Holly // Graphic: Kitsap
PUD

Let me take a moment to further emphasize the difference in
rainfall from north to south on the Kitsap Peninsula. Holly’s
nonrecord precipitation of 22.9 inches in November is more than
half of Hansville’s rainfall for the entire record year of 1999,
when a total of 43.8 inches came down. Holly’s annual record is
127.5 inches set in 1999.

The average annual rainfall for Hansville is 30.7 inches,
compared to Silverdale with a 42.8-inch average and Holly with 79.2
inches.

Looking forward, the rains are likely to continue, according to
NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center (PDF 5.3 mb). La Nina
conditions emerged in October and are predicted to continue through
the winter in the Northern Hemisphere. The likely result will be
below-average temperatures and above-average precipitation across
the northern part of the contiguous U.S. — and the opposite across
the southern tier of states, as shown in the map below.